Down with the two-party system

 

By Jarod Daily

 

 

Is the United States political system supposed to make me feel disenfranchised, even when there are no real obstacles to my voting?

 

I’m not talking about efforts to make voters present photo identification; I don’t think that’s a bad idea, particularly if paired with a push to make photo IDs easier to get for legitimate voters. But that’s beside my point. I’m not talking about unclear ballots; those are a problem for another day. I’m not even talking about any conscious efforts to impede voting rights, though those issues exist in this country.

 

No, my problem is that the two-party system encourages voters to pigeonhole themselves into two choices. The thing is: People aren’t binary, and neither are their beliefs. As Sirius Black says in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, “The world isn’t divided into good people and Death Eaters” — no matter how much partisans of one side or the other would have you believe that their opponents are, in fact, Death Eaters. Yet this country's electorate has allowed itself to be separated into binary components.

 

Yes, there are people who believe in big government, to protect people and help them, and support gay marriage, abortion rights, and gun control. On the flip side, there are people who want the government to tax less — and in return do less — and oppose gay marriage and abortion in all instances, and consider the Second Amendment sacred. But what about everyone whose beliefs don’t fall squarely into choosing between Democrat and Republican?

 

Ultimately, the two-party system in U.S. politics increasingly disenfranchises those whose beliefs fall toward the middle of the spectrum and others who simply cannot find much common ground with either Democrats or Republicans.

 

I have always considered myself first and foremost an independent, then somewhat moderate, then rather libertarian. I am not a member of the Libertarian Party, though I often vote for its candidates because their positions are the closest to my own, even if much of the party’s platform seems a bit extreme.

 

Yet in nearly every serious political discussion, at least one person tries to make me feel as if I’m doing the country a disservice by voting for my beliefs rather than choosing the better of what I see as two rather poor options.

 

In the 2012 presidential election, for example, I see in President Barack Obama a weak incumbent who has been unable or unwilling to compromise to get much done — though to be fair, Republican lawmakers are also at fault, because they want so badly to be back in power that they fight Obama tooth and nail and refuse to compromise to any meaningful degree. Obama’s signature accomplishment in office was his implementation of a health-care overhaul that I see as likely to line insurance companies’ pockets even more while hurting those who can’t afford coverage now by forcing them to buy it anyway. Even worse, the gun-to-your-head mandate to buy health insurance is like a slap to the face of anyone who believes in free choice, personal freedoms, and personal responsibilities. I have always had health insurance, but being told that I must have it or else bothers me on a fundamental level, and I fear more of the same from a second Obama term.

 

But Republican challenger Mitt Romney seems to be even worse. Not only does he fall well short of the small-government ideals his party claims to espouse, but he and his party also have become enemies of a number of personal freedoms — not only enemies, but vehement ones. The dogmatic, all-important approach the GOP has toward issues such as gay marriage and abortion rights virtually ensures that many people for whom those topics are important will never give them the time of day, much less a vote. And that’s to say nothing of the party’s recent history of warmongering or its long-established ties to big business, two qualities that don’t sit well with any libertarian-leaning voter.

 

I think I do see one candidate as the lesser of two evils, but why should I vote for him if he does not measure up to what I want in a president? I shouldn’t have to worry about keeping “the other guy” out of office so much that I compromise my own principles — personal freedom and responsibility, a preference to take care of problems at home and leave other nations to do the same, and a fiscally responsible government that simply does not try to do too much — by voting for someone else who doesn’t line up with those. The bottom line is that I should not have to and do not have to do so — and neither should anyone else who disagrees with both Democrats and Republicans on several fundamental levels.

 

In many countries, multiple political parties — not just two major groups — enjoy enough support to earn a few seats in a lawmaking body and can even become part of a governing coalition under the right circumstances. But in the United States, the Republican and Democratic parties subsume these other viewpoints, becoming something akin to a pair of coalitions, albeit coalitions that each vote along singular party lines in most cases.

 

So a stigma has become attached to anyone who resists the efforts to assimilate into these coalitions; to borrow from pop culture, such resistance is deemed futile. In national elections, third-party candidates are considered spoilers — that is, if they’re taken seriously at all — rather than as personifications of valid, alternative viewpoints that deserve to be heard and represented.

 

In the 2000 presidential election, many say Green Party candidate Ralph Nader cost then-Vice President Al Gore — a Democrat — the decisive electoral votes in Florida. The antiquated Electoral College system is at least partly to blame for the mess of that election. Under the winner-takes-all Electoral College system, votes for any candidates that don’t win a state essentially don’t count. Not only does this system essentially disenfranchise Republicans in Blue States and Democrats in Red States, but it also presents obstacles to alternative viewpoints gaining any traction. The mindset that any vote for a third-party candidate is wasted, or “thrown away,” is intensified by the electoral college.

 

Furthermore, this year the Republican Party has been fighting court battles in numerous states to keep Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson, a former New Mexico governor, off the ballot. Many of these attempts have been unsuccessful, but election laws in two states, Oklahoma and Michigan, are tricky enough that the GOP may yet keep candidates off the ballot.

 

Just as troubling is the fact that even when third-party candidates have ballot access, they rarely get attention in mainstream media or equal time in debates. In fact, third-party candidates are almost never invited to debates at all. Some of that is the fault of various media outlets; some of it can be blamed on forces within the two-party system that fight against anyone outside the system. Ultimately, though, fighting ballot access for independent or third-party candidates and keeping them out of debates and media coverage amounts to keeping voters from having alternative choices. And why? Because the major parties are afraid of losing votes.

 

If the major parties feel threatened by third parties, the solution is not blocking ballot access, fighting against inclusive debates, or disparaging alternative candidates with rhetoric like “throwing your vote away.” Rather, they ought to alter their platforms to appeal to a broader voter base. If Republicans want libertarian-minded voters to support them, perhaps they should endeavor to de-emphasize noneconomic issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage and focus more on fighting for a government that is responsible with its taxpayers' money. Likewise, if Democrats want to appeal to more voters, that party should consider trying to rein in its spending before the national debt gets so out of hand that future generations face either prohibitively high taxes or a governmental insolvency and collapse on the level of what we see now in many European countries. Perhaps if the major parties recognize that they’re losing enough votes, they might be spurred to change some of their platform positions.

 

So, to any fellow independents, I have this to say: Who cares if anyone tells you a vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for Obama, or for Romney, or that you should vote for the lesser of two evils? Your vote is your own, and you have every right to cast it according to your own convictions.

 

For me, there’s the Libertarian Party. Many others find strong appeal in the Green or Constitution parties, or a broad array of self-identifying socialist parties, to name just a few. And for those whose political beliefs fall closely in line with Democrats or Republicans? Vote for those parties. There’s nothing wrong with that, if that’s what you believe in. What’s important is that you treat your vote as your own, sacred expression of what you believe, rather than what society tells you to do with it. If more people did that, perhaps fewer would feel as disenfranchised as I.